a
dungeon, and he writes the immortal "Pilgrim's Progress."

Stick to a thing and carry it through in all its completeness and
proportion, and you will become a hero. You will think better of
yourself; others will exalt you.

Thoroughness is another of the common virtues which all may cultivate.
The man who puts his best into every task will leave far behind the man
who lets a job go with the comment "That's good enough." Nothing is
good enough unless it reflects our best.

Daniel Webster had no remarkable traits of character in his boyhood.
He was sent to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and stayed
there only a short time when a neighbor found him crying on his way
home, and asked the reason. Daniel said he despaired of ever making a
scholar. He said the boys made fun of him, for always being at the
foot of the class, and that he had decided to give up and go home. The
friend said he ought to go back, and see what hard study would do. He
went back, applied himself to his studies with determination to win,
and it was not long before he silenced those who had ridiculed him, by
reaching the head of the class, and remaining there.

Fidelity to duty has been a distinguishing virtue in men who have risen
to positions of authority and command. It has been observed that the
dispatches of Napoleon rang with the word glory. Wellington's
dispatches centered around the common word duty.

Nowadays people seem unwilling to tread the rough path of duty and by
patience and steadfast perseverance step into the ranks of those the
country delights to honor.

Every little while I get letters from young men who say, if they were
positively sure that they could be a Webster in law, they would devote
all their energies to study, fling their whole lives into their work;
or if they could be an Edison in invention, or a great leader in
medicine, or a merchant prince like Wanamaker or Marshall Field, they
could work with enthusiasm and zeal and power and concentration. They
would be willing to make any sacrifice, to undergo any hardship in
order to achieve what these men have achieved. But many of them say
they do not feel that they have the marvelous ability, the great
genius, the tremendous talent exhibited by those leaders, and so they
are not willing to make the great exertion.

They do not realize that success is not necessarily doing some great
thing, that it is not making a tremendous strain to do something gre